Communications devices in motor vehicles that facilitate a wireless communications link between a vehicle component of the motor vehicle and a communications partner, in particular a (off-board) communications partner that is not an integral part of the motor vehicle, are generally known. The term vehicle component can cover software applications implemented in a vehicle computer and also hardware modules such as an engine control module, for example. These are typically connected via a wired communications line to the wireless communications module, in order to use said module to establish the wireless communications link between the vehicle component and the communications partner, for example a cellular phone, a portable computer, another motor vehicle, a fixed terrestrial transceiver station or a satellite transceiver station.
Thus, modern vehicles are now often equipped with communications systems, for example WiFi, Bluetooth and/or GSM, for instance in order to be able to facilitate, via the air interface, emergency call functions, multimedia and navigation functions or even software updates of vehicle modules. Unfortunately, despite safeguards put in place, for instance by encrypting the wireless data transmission and/or using a firewall to protect against access to the vehicle component, an unauthorized person could use these wireless communications links to manipulate or even control the vehicle components via the wireless communications link, which may constitute a risk to the reliability of the motor vehicle and hence also to the safety of the occupants of the vehicle.
U.S. 2014/0199965 A1 and U.S. 2014/0199989 A1 disclose motor vehicles having communications devices. To prevent an unauthorized person from being able to use a wireless communications link from the vehicle without authorization, U.S. 2014/0199965 A1 proposes temporary deactivation of one or more wireless services of the motor vehicle by the authorized user. According to one embodiment, the user input for deactivation can be made by means of a pushbutton assigned to a human machine interface.